Japanese mobile phone culture
Encyclopedia
In Japan
, mobile phone
s have become ubiquitous. In Japanese, mobile phones are called keitai denwa , literally "portable telephones," and are often known simply as keitai.
Much of the Japanese population own cellular phones, most of which are equipped with enhancements such as video and camera capabilities. As of May 2008, 31.3% of elementary school students, and 57.6% of middle school students own a cell phone, with many of them accessing the internet through them. This pervasiveness and the particularities of their usage lead to the development of a mobile phone culture, or "keitai culture."
Most cellular phones sold in the last three years have integrated cameras; some more up to date models have high quality digital cameras. Many of the cameras are capable of taking both still and video images. Images can usually be sent to other mobile phones and embedded in messages.
In recent years, some cellular phones even have the capability of being used as debit or credit cards and can be swiped through most checkout lines to buy products as varied as mascara and jet planes, as more and more companies offer catalogs for cell phones. These functionalities include:
Some newer models allow the user to watch movies and/or television. Most phones can be connected to the Internet
through services such as i-mode
. Japan was also the first to launch 3G
services on a large scale. Users can browse text-only Internet sites, and many Japanese sites have sub-sites designed especially for cellular phone users. One of the most popular services allows users to check train schedules and plan trips on public transit.
Some mobile phones are waterproof, even in the high-specifications segment.
(♎). It resembles a cooked and puffed mochi, and is sometimes used in a happy new year's message as mochi are often eaten then. The symbol for Aquarius (♒) resembles waves, so this would be used to mean 'sea'. The number of icons gradually increased and they are now coloured on most cell phones, to make them more distinct. ASCII art
is also used widely and many of them are faces with expression. (see also Shift JIS art
)
('gal characters' named after the fashion style 'gyaru
' or 'gal
' because the people of this fashion style are the ones who often use this kind of lettering). For example Lt wouldn't correspond to the Latin characters 'L' and 't' but instead it would correspond to the hiragana, け ('ke'). Notice that it looks very similar when written. Many hiragana, katakana and kanji are taken apart and reassembled using different characters including alphabet characters. It is unclear why this usage is now seen. Some believe that this started as a way of making secret messages that a quick peek wouldn't reveal, while others claim that it was just for fun. This can be related to the way the English language
hacking culture
uses 1337
language to hide the meaning of the words typed.
It is also possibly due to different character limits when different languages are used, e.g. 160 Latin characters and 70 Unicode (inc. kanji). By splitting the characters into alpha-numeric characters, it extends the possible over-all length of the message.
s are popular with the same audience.
s had gained mainstream popularity in Japan, years before the United States and Europe. By 2003, a wide variety of mobile games were available on Japanese phones, ranging from puzzle games and virtual pet titles that utilize camera phone
technology to 3D
games with PlayStation-quality graphics. Older arcade-style games
became particularly popular on mobile phones, which were an ideal platform for arcade-style games designed for shorter play sessions.
The graphics were getting better as handsets were becoming more powerful, as demonstrated by the mobile version of Ridge Racer
in 2003, though such titles cost twice as much as other mobile games. It was published by Namco
, one of the most successful mobile game publishers at the time. That same year, Namco also released a fighting game
that uses camera phone technology to create a player character
based on the player's profile, and interprets the image to determine the character's speed and power; the character can then be sent to a friend's mobile to battle. Namco began making attempts to introduce mobile gaming culture to Europe in 2003.
Other mobile games released in 2003 included a Tamagotchi
-like virtual pet game by Panasonic
where the pet is fed by photos of foods taken with a camera phone. Another virtual pet game utilized a fingerprint scanner built into a handset to interact with a pet. Another mobile game that year was an educational game
that utilized a mobile's microphone to help children with their pronounciation skills.
and various stickers. The stickers are often in the maki-e
style, and are advertised as such.
used in the late 1980s to early 1990s predate mobile phones and paved the way for the popularity of the phones among teenagers. Pagers could only display numbers and were intended to alert the owner that he or she had received a call from a certain phone number, but teens quickly began using numeric messages to communicate many things, including greetings and everyday emotions. Most were based on various ways numbers could be read in Japanese. Examples are
With the rapidly falling prices of cell phones in the mid 1990s, young people began experimenting with the short message service
that the mobile phone companies started offering. When the i-mode service became available, the mobile phone culture began flourishing in earnest as this service offered an E-mail application. Magazines and television regularly make specials focusing on the current trend of how mobile phones are used by young people.
' which are a form of 2D barcode that is written out in a square shape instead of a bar shape. The phone handset can scan the barcode using its camera or other input, decode the information, and then take actions based on the type of content. The most popular usage of these QR codes is in advertising. All over Japan there are posters with the codes on and they are found extensively in magazines and even on some people’s business cards. The QR code usually has links to a web site address or email address that the phone can access, or it might contain address and telephone numbers.
Sony, working with NTT DoCoMo
, has been spearheading the mobile phone wallet technology, commonly known as 'FeliCa
'. This technology makes use of an RFID chip inside the handset that can communicate with reading devices when the phone is placed near them. Though the technology is relatively new, there are many locations such as convenience stores which allow users to pay for goods using their phones; some vending machines even accept phone payments. Users must 'charge up' their accounts with credits before they can pay using their phones. The growing popularity of the system is compelling other manufacturers to make compatible phones.
Gracenote and Media Socket have a service where the user holds the phone up to a source of music (such as a speaker), and, by dialing a certain phone number, the song is found in a database and identified. The user receives the song's title, artist, and album within seconds. This information can in turn be used to search the mobile internet to find that song.
to answer a cell phone in certain public places. For example, on trains it is rude to answer or talk on cellphones. Most people put their phone in 'manner mode' in order not to be annoying to others and to avoid embarrassment on trains. On the other hand, writing emails or playing games with a cell phone while on the train is completely acceptable.
Electromagnetic energy are theorized to cause interference with heart pacemaker
s and other medical devices. Most trains contain signs demanding that mobile phones be turned off when around seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped, but passengers rarely do so. In hospitals, it is expected that one should turn it off entirely.
Talking on the phone while driving is prohibited, but nevertheless extremely common.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s have become ubiquitous. In Japanese, mobile phones are called keitai denwa , literally "portable telephones," and are often known simply as keitai.
Much of the Japanese population own cellular phones, most of which are equipped with enhancements such as video and camera capabilities. As of May 2008, 31.3% of elementary school students, and 57.6% of middle school students own a cell phone, with many of them accessing the internet through them. This pervasiveness and the particularities of their usage lead to the development of a mobile phone culture, or "keitai culture."
Features
Japan is leading in mobile phone technology. Japan's cell phone always have cool features before we found it.Most cellular phones sold in the last three years have integrated cameras; some more up to date models have high quality digital cameras. Many of the cameras are capable of taking both still and video images. Images can usually be sent to other mobile phones and embedded in messages.
- E-mailE-mailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
- configurable databases
- phone and address books
- alarm clocks and stopwatches
- Live Video feed via PiconetPiconetThe original piconet was a networking type used on RM Nimbus computers.These days, a piconet' is an ad-hoc computer network linking a user group of devices using Bluetooth technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active slave devices...
- Mobile gameMobile gameA mobile game is a video game played on a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet computer or portable media player. This does not include games played on handheld video game systems such as Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable....
s, such as role-playing gameRole-playing gameA role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s like Dragon QuestDragon Quest, published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005,Due to the inconsistent usage by sources since Square Enix obtained the naming rights to Dragon Quest in North America. Dragon Quest has been used by sources to refer to games released solely under the Dragon Warrior titles...
or Final FantasyFinal Fantasyis a media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and is developed and owned by Square Enix . The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science-fantasy role-playing video games , but includes motion pictures, anime, printed media, and other merchandise...
series - Daytimers
- Varying degrees of image enhancement capabilities, such as the option to create borders, to create animations, and more.
- Instant messengers
- Calculator, calendar, schedule note and memo pad
- Playback of downloaded music
- Recording and playback of voices, music, images and pictures
- Portable music player (MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
player etc.) - Portable video player (MP4MPEG-4 Part 14MPEG-4 Part 14 or MP4 is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital video and digital audio streams, especially those defined by MPEG, but can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images...
player etc.) - Viewing online FlashAdobe FlashAdobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
video (YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Nico Nico DougaNico Nico Dougais a popular video sharing website in Japan managed by Niwango, a subsidiary of Dwango. Its nickname is "Niconico" or "Nico-dō", where "nikoniko" is the Japanese ideophone for smiling. Nico Nico Douga is the thirteenth most visited website in Japan...
etc.) - Video calling
- Navigation by GPS
- Viewing and listening to TV (1seg1segis a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. Service began experimentally during 2005 and commercially on April 1, 2006. In Brazil, the broadcast started in late 2007 in just a few cities, with a slight difference from...
) and radio (FM/AM) - Viewing video on demand contents (use packet data transfer for video streaming to watch, contents available from video on demand service provider, contents available with pay per contents/limited period etc.) (for watching, use the cell phone's video viewer or download and use contents provider's video viewer application for cell phone.)
- TV phone
- Crime prevention buzzer (with automatic reporting system to the police)
- PedometerPedometerA pedometer is a device, usually portable and electronic or electromechanical, that counts each step a person takes by detecting the motion of the person's hips...
- 'Read aloud' system
- Touch-pad system
- A fingerprint/face recognition system for the protection of personal data
- Mobile centrex service with wireless LANWireless LANA wireless local area network links two or more devices using some wireless distribution method , and usually providing a connection through an access point to the wider internet. This gives users the mobility to move around within a local coverage area and still be connected to the network...
In recent years, some cellular phones even have the capability of being used as debit or credit cards and can be swiped through most checkout lines to buy products as varied as mascara and jet planes, as more and more companies offer catalogs for cell phones. These functionalities include:
- E-money service and various certification functions through Untouched IC card (FeliCaFeliCaFeliCa is a contactless RFID smart card system from Sony in Japan, primarily used in electronic money cards. The name stands for Felicity Card...
etc.) - Various services with NTT DoCoMoNTT DoCoMois the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
’s ‘Osaifu-KeitaiOsaifu-Keitai, literally meaning "Wallet Mobile", is a trademark of NTT DoCoMo, which developed the system. It refers to mobile phones that integrate Sony's Mobile FeliCa ICs, as well as to services provided by applications on these phones....
(mobile phone with walletMobile PaymentMobile financial services, also referred to as mobile money, mobile payment, mobile banking, mobile money transfer and mobile wallet generally refer to payment services operated under financial regulation and performed from or via a mobile device....
function)’ - E-money service e.g. ‘EdyEdyEdy provided by bitWallet, Inc. in Japan is a prepaid rechargeable contactless smart card. It uses Sony's FeliCa technology, also used by the competing Suica/Pasmo cards by JR East. While the name derives from euro, dollar, and yen, it works with yen only.On April 18, 2006, Intel announced a five...
’ - Function as ‘Mobile SuicaMobile Suicais a service for Osaifu Keitai mobile phones, first launched on January 28, 2006 by NTT DoCoMo and au in Japan, and now also offered by SoftBank Mobile and Willcom. Suica is a prepaid rechargeable contactless smart card mainly used to pay for fares on the JR East railway network.Just like...
,’ which can be used for a season ticket and a train ticket - Cmode: vending machines which can be used with QR CodeQR CodeA QR code is a type of matrix barcode first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white...
and ‘Osaifu-Keitai’ of a mobile phone - I concierge : NTT DoCoMoNTT DoCoMois the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
's service. (Teaching information about traffic,food,shopping etc)by GPS
Some newer models allow the user to watch movies and/or television. Most phones can be connected to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
through services such as i-mode
I-mode
NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocol, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail and the packet-switched network that delivers the data...
. Japan was also the first to launch 3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
services on a large scale. Users can browse text-only Internet sites, and many Japanese sites have sub-sites designed especially for cellular phone users. One of the most popular services allows users to check train schedules and plan trips on public transit.
Some mobile phones are waterproof, even in the high-specifications segment.
In Use
The (vocal) use of mobile phones on public transport is frowned upon, and messages asking passengers not to make calls and to switch their phones to silent mode ("public mode" or "manners mode" in Japanese) are played frequently. This, combined with the low per-message price, ample allowed length per message (10,000 characters per message) the ability to enhance messages with special characters, emoticons, pictures use their original meaning by relying more on the information based on the shape each character has. For example, '\' may be attached at the end of a sentence to show that they are not happy about the event described. A sentence like "I have a test today\" (translated) might mean that he or she didn't study enough, or that the test itself is depressing. Some of these usages disappeared as suitable icons were made but these newly made icons also acquired a usage not originally intended. Another example deals with the astrological symbol for LibraLibra (astrology)
Libra is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac, originating from the constellation of Libra. In astrology, Libra is considered a "masculine", positive sign. It is also considered an air sign and is one of four cardinal signs...
(♎). It resembles a cooked and puffed mochi, and is sometimes used in a happy new year's message as mochi are often eaten then. The symbol for Aquarius (♒) resembles waves, so this would be used to mean 'sea'. The number of icons gradually increased and they are now coloured on most cell phones, to make them more distinct. ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
is also used widely and many of them are faces with expression. (see also Shift JIS art
Shift JIS art
Shift_JIS art is artwork created from characters within the Shift JIS character set, a superset of ASCII intended for Japanese usage. Naturally there are many similarities between Shift_JIS artwork and ASCII art....
)
Gyaru-moji
One very distinct form of writing is called 'gyaru-mojiGyaru-moji
is a style of obfuscated Japanese writing popular amongst Japanese young people. It is also called Heta-moji...
('gal characters' named after the fashion style 'gyaru
Gyaru
is a Japanese transliteration of the English word gal, that of girl being . The name originated from a 1970s brand of jeans called "gals", with the advertising slogan: "I can't live without men", and was applied to fashion- and peer-conscious girls in their teens and early twenties. Its usage...
' or 'gal
Gal
-Given name:* Gal Costa, Brazilian Bossa Nova singer*Gal Fridman , windsurfer and first Israeli to win an Olympic gold medal-Surname:* Austrian composer and artist Bernhard Gál* Jenny Gal, Dutch-Italian judoka...
' because the people of this fashion style are the ones who often use this kind of lettering). For example Lt wouldn't correspond to the Latin characters 'L' and 't' but instead it would correspond to the hiragana, け ('ke'). Notice that it looks very similar when written. Many hiragana, katakana and kanji are taken apart and reassembled using different characters including alphabet characters. It is unclear why this usage is now seen. Some believe that this started as a way of making secret messages that a quick peek wouldn't reveal, while others claim that it was just for fun. This can be related to the way the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
hacking culture
Hacker culture
A hacker is a member of the computer programmer subculture originated in the 1960s in the United States academia, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
uses 1337
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
language to hide the meaning of the words typed.
It is also possibly due to different character limits when different languages are used, e.g. 160 Latin characters and 70 Unicode (inc. kanji). By splitting the characters into alpha-numeric characters, it extends the possible over-all length of the message.
Cell phone novels
Mobile phone novelMobile phone novel
A cell phone novel, or mobile phone novel , is a literary work originally written on a cellular phone via text messaging. This type of literature originated in Japan, where it has become a popular literary genre...
s are popular with the same audience.
Mobile gaming
In the early 2000s, mobile gameMobile game
A mobile game is a video game played on a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet computer or portable media player. This does not include games played on handheld video game systems such as Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable....
s had gained mainstream popularity in Japan, years before the United States and Europe. By 2003, a wide variety of mobile games were available on Japanese phones, ranging from puzzle games and virtual pet titles that utilize camera phone
Camera phone
A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture still photographs . Since early in the 21st century the majority of mobile phones in use are camera phones....
technology to 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
games with PlayStation-quality graphics. Older arcade-style games
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
became particularly popular on mobile phones, which were an ideal platform for arcade-style games designed for shorter play sessions.
The graphics were getting better as handsets were becoming more powerful, as demonstrated by the mobile version of Ridge Racer
Ridge Racer
Ridge Racer may refer to:*Ridge Racer , an arcade game first released by Namco in 1993, later ported to the PlayStation*Ridge Racer , a series of sequels and spin-offs based on the arcade game...
in 2003, though such titles cost twice as much as other mobile games. It was published by Namco
Namco
is a Japanese corporation best known as a former video game developer and publisher. Following a merger with Bandai in September 2005, the two companies' game production assets were spun off into Namco Bandai Games on March 31, 2006. Namco Ltd. was re-established to continue domestic operation of...
, one of the most successful mobile game publishers at the time. That same year, Namco also released a fighting game
Fighting game
Fighting game is a video game genre where the player controls an on-screen character and engages in close combat with an opponent. These characters tend to be of equal power and fight matches consisting of several rounds, which take place in an arena. Players must master techniques such as...
that uses camera phone technology to create a player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
based on the player's profile, and interprets the image to determine the character's speed and power; the character can then be sent to a friend's mobile to battle. Namco began making attempts to introduce mobile gaming culture to Europe in 2003.
Other mobile games released in 2003 included a Tamagotchi
Tamagotchi
The is a handheld digital pet, created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai. It was first sold by Bandai in 1996 in Japan. As of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis have been sold world-wide...
-like virtual pet game by Panasonic
Panasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
where the pet is fed by photos of foods taken with a camera phone. Another virtual pet game utilized a fingerprint scanner built into a handset to interact with a pet. Another mobile game that year was an educational game
Educational game
Educational games are games that have been designed to teach people about a certain subject, expand concepts, reinforce development, understand an historical event or culture, or assist them in learning a skill as they play...
that utilized a mobile's microphone to help children with their pronounciation skills.
Decoration
Phone decorations are common, notably mobile phone charmsMobile phone charms
Mobile phone charms are charms that are connected to a mobile phone using a small strap. Many phones have a loop hole through which a strap can be attached.-History:...
and various stickers. The stickers are often in the maki-e
Maki-e
is Japanese lacquer sprinkled with gold or silver powder as a decoration using a makizutsu or a kebo brush. The technique was developed mainly in the Heian Period and blossomed in the Edo Period...
style, and are advertised as such.
Teenagers and mobile phones
Paging devicesPager
A pager is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call...
used in the late 1980s to early 1990s predate mobile phones and paved the way for the popularity of the phones among teenagers. Pagers could only display numbers and were intended to alert the owner that he or she had received a call from a certain phone number, but teens quickly began using numeric messages to communicate many things, including greetings and everyday emotions. Most were based on various ways numbers could be read in Japanese. Examples are
- 4-6-4-9 -- yo-ro-shi-ku ("hello," "best regards")
- 3-3-4-1 -- sa-bi-shi-i ("I feel lonely")
- 8-8-9-1-9 -- ha-ya-ku-i-ku ("hurry up, let's go")
With the rapidly falling prices of cell phones in the mid 1990s, young people began experimenting with the short message service
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
that the mobile phone companies started offering. When the i-mode service became available, the mobile phone culture began flourishing in earnest as this service offered an E-mail application. Magazines and television regularly make specials focusing on the current trend of how mobile phones are used by young people.
Forefront of consumer technology
There is a popular trend in Japan to use the mobile phone handset to read information from special barcodes. The current technology is based on 'QR codesQR Code
A QR code is a type of matrix barcode first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white...
' which are a form of 2D barcode that is written out in a square shape instead of a bar shape. The phone handset can scan the barcode using its camera or other input, decode the information, and then take actions based on the type of content. The most popular usage of these QR codes is in advertising. All over Japan there are posters with the codes on and they are found extensively in magazines and even on some people’s business cards. The QR code usually has links to a web site address or email address that the phone can access, or it might contain address and telephone numbers.
Sony, working with NTT DoCoMo
NTT DoCoMo
is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
, has been spearheading the mobile phone wallet technology, commonly known as 'FeliCa
FeliCa
FeliCa is a contactless RFID smart card system from Sony in Japan, primarily used in electronic money cards. The name stands for Felicity Card...
'. This technology makes use of an RFID chip inside the handset that can communicate with reading devices when the phone is placed near them. Though the technology is relatively new, there are many locations such as convenience stores which allow users to pay for goods using their phones; some vending machines even accept phone payments. Users must 'charge up' their accounts with credits before they can pay using their phones. The growing popularity of the system is compelling other manufacturers to make compatible phones.
Gracenote and Media Socket have a service where the user holds the phone up to a source of music (such as a speaker), and, by dialing a certain phone number, the song is found in a database and identified. The user receives the song's title, artist, and album within seconds. This information can in turn be used to search the mobile internet to find that song.
Negative aspects
It is considered a violation of public etiquetteEtiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
to answer a cell phone in certain public places. For example, on trains it is rude to answer or talk on cellphones. Most people put their phone in 'manner mode' in order not to be annoying to others and to avoid embarrassment on trains. On the other hand, writing emails or playing games with a cell phone while on the train is completely acceptable.
Electromagnetic energy are theorized to cause interference with heart pacemaker
Artificial pacemaker
A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...
s and other medical devices. Most trains contain signs demanding that mobile phones be turned off when around seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped, but passengers rarely do so. In hospitals, it is expected that one should turn it off entirely.
Talking on the phone while driving is prohibited, but nevertheless extremely common.
External links
- Cell phone culture here unlike any other
- "Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Re-Placement of Social Contact" by Mizuko ItoMizuko Itois a Japanese cultural anthropologist who is an Associate Researcher at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, she is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance....
- "Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life"(2005) edited by Mizuko ItoMizuko Itois a Japanese cultural anthropologist who is an Associate Researcher at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine. In addition, she is a Visiting Associate Professor at the Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance....
, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda. Click here for a pdf of a draft of the introduction.